Sailing To Byzantium
by Tanzy Morrow
Summary: Circa Raiders of the Lost Ark, losing someone he cares about sends Indy into the bottle.


Author's Note: I don't own Indiana Jones. Probably because they know what I would do to him if I did. Nor do I own _Raiders Of The Lost Ark_. This is just me, pondering just how long it took him to get drunk after the kaboom in the market at Cairo.

*

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees

- Those dying generations - at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

"Sailing to Byzantium" by W.B. Yeats

*

I feel like an old, old man. Way too old for, what, thirty-seven? And I keep getting older. She won't, though. I never should have hunted her down again. Could've sent Brody to get the talisman. Right. Then be attending _his_ funeral.

Goddamn. Ten years ago, I did a number on her life. She said she was just a kid but she wasn't like any kid I ever met. Stubborn and willful and she knew exactly what she wanted. I never forced her into anything. Seventeen and tougher and more worldly than she had any right to be. It was Abner's fault, I suppose. No mother and the most dusty-minded father in the world. He was a brilliant archeologist and he loved her, pretty obvious with how he cut me off when he found out, but he wasn't exactly stable. Trust me. I know all about unstable fathers who get lost in a manuscript and mumble in Latin. Or, in Abner's case, in ancient Greek. I'm surprised she never picked any of that up, to be honest. She is, was a smart girl. Which makes her giving me the time of day one of those great mysteries of the ages.

Strange, though, you know? When I first started working under Abner, I hardly noticed her. She was just there, just his daughter. This scruffy, knobby-kneed, freckle-faced girl. Her and I got along. Rough-housing and chatting and she took to tagging after her father and I. It got to be a relief to have her along. We could chat when Abner wandered off into his own head. She was good company. Then she was valuable company. Then, one day, I looked up and there was that smile. Marion Ravenwood, gorgeous young woman. And what do you do with gorgeous young women when you find them in out-of-the-way places? When you're lonely and they're fun?

Of course I knew she had a crush on me. I'm not stupid. Not about that sort of thing, anyway. So I capitalized on it when I realized she was amazing. I liked her. She liked me. We had fun. Lots of fun. I probably should have taken it all more seriously than I did. She was only seventeen or so. Just a kid. I kept forgetting that. I was an old man to her. She was just a kid and she was taking it so...

After a while, this cheap grain alcohol doesn't burn anymore. After a while, you can't feel anything but the repetitive actions of swallowing. With this stuff, you can't see much either. Everything goes blurry pretty quickly. Drunk from the feet up. You can't feel but you can think and I can't stop thinking about _her_. Marion.

I brought her back into my life. Brought her back into this mess. I knew the danger. I should have knocked her down in the snow, taken the eye, and left. She would have hated me forever but what would have been new about that? She hated me anyway. I should have left it just like that. Then she would have been alive right now. Cheating the locals of their money with her cast-iron stomach.

When she was seventeen, I used to drink her under the table. We did other things under the table, too. Things that her father would have castrated me if he'd ever found out. What he found out in the end was enough, anyway, though. Good-bye, Dr. Ravenwood. Good-bye, Marion.

How did this bottle get so close to empty? No wonder I'm starting to repeat myself in my head. I bet the world will spin nicely when I stand up. Which I might have to do at some point. I have to leave here eventually and, and, and... Do what? Duty to God and country? Ha. I'll go back to Sallah's, tell him what happened, pack my things, and go. Out to the desert. See what Belloq's found. Get the goods. Fame and glory and then back to the States to be alone with my ghosts.

Marion. I'll drink to you. I'm sorry. You deserved better than a fiery grave.

You deserved better than me. Me. The old, old man. You. The young, young girl. God help me, I feel ancient. All worn out and going nowhere but down. Give me another bottle, man. This one isn't enough.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal it knows not what it is; and gather me into the artifice of eternity.

Another bottle, man. I'm saying good-bye to the freckle-faced girl. I'm saying good-bye to the woman who punched me. I'm saying good-bye.

Good-bye, Marion. Should've left you alone. Back in Nepal. Back in the past.


End file.
